Amazing What Light Can Bring

So after the first appointment with the counselor and the new controls on the phone, things began to slowly improve. I started to want to get better, not just want to want to. I won’t say I’m dancing in the joy of sobriety, but I will say I’m on firmer footing than I’ve been in, what, a year and half? That, my friends, is progress and I’ll take it. Jim is away in Michigan for 10 days. And that honestly might have been what prompted all of this to begin with. Well, that, and getting down to the proverbial bottom-of-the-barrel. I didn’t want to think how bad it could get with literally no one here for days on end and nothing to stop me and nothing to fill my empty hours.

I’m filling them, sometimes with not-bad books, some TV, some internet, some odds and ends of projects around the house (changing the toilet seat, anyone?!). All in all, it’s been ok. I met with the counselor last Thursday and was honestly surprised at the difference I saw in just a week. I was happy and she was too. So, for now, I’ll just keep at it and see how things go. Here’s to babysteps, people!

I Want to Want to

No, that’s not a typo.

That’s the phrase I used with my counselor yesterday. It was our first time talking in a couple of years. In a sliver of sanity I had emailed her, asking if she was accepting new/old patients. She fit me in.

I was honest with her–honest in a way I haven’t been with anyone but you, dear People, are are nameless and faceless and no danger to my addiction. She asked me, point blank, do I want to stop reading and do the work? I hemmed and hawed and finally came back with “I want to want to”, which means at this moment I don’t actually WANT to, but there’s a part of me that desires it and wants the rest of me to want to as well.

She gave me homework of “cost benefit analysis”; list what happens if I stay in this and what happens if I stop. We meet again next Thursday, so I have time to really weigh it.

I had my husband put a passcode on my phone last night (old phone had one, new one didn’t), forcing me to use the Accountable 2 U app (tracks EVERYTHING) instead of the really sneaky Safari. I can’t have that power. I’m not and probably never will be trustworthy enough. That’s not a cut against me, it’s an honest assessment of known weakness.

So here we are. One tiny babystep in the right direction, but unsure about the rest of it.